Don’t
talk over Larry Munson during an interview. He won’t snap at you – he’s
not a mean person, but you may miss a tidbit of information he’s gathered
during his Hall of Fame career in broadcasting.
Munson,
the voice of the Dawgs for the last four-plus decades, retired in September and
Dean Legge takes a look back at his legendary lifetime.
Wildlife and wind – Munson’s early
broadcasting days
“I don’t have much of an idea why I
decided to go to radio school. I was home and they gave you $200 for discharge
pay (Munson was a medic in the Army). I heard a commercial on a radio station
literally begging for announcers. All the guys that used to work in radio had
gone to war and no one was home yet. There were radio schools popping up
everywhere, so I went to one of those and it cost me my $200. They guaranteed
you a job, though, and I got a job out of it,” said Munson.
Munson, a Minnesota native, was off
to the West to start his career in radio. His first job was in Devil’s Lake,
North Dakota. But he soon moved on.
“I wanted to do sports,” he said.
“So I took a job out in Cheyenne, Wyoming.”
“Wyoming was different from
anywhere. The wind was one factor; and the cold, I thought, was worse than
Minnesota because we did a lot of games – there were no press boxes when
you did high school and stuff – sometimes we just had a card table down
on the sideline; there were no bleachers. We would wrap up in blankets we had
taken out of the motel room. The wind would be blowing snow sideways, and it
was really cold.”
Munson, who had never been in a
place like Wyoming, was taken aback by the view, but sometimes the view was
dangerous.
“Wyoming was a beautiful, stunning
state – it was just stunning. You saw so much wildlife; you had to be
careful driving all of the time because the deer or the antelope were in big
groups, and sometimes they were walking right down the road. There were no
expressways built yet, so you really got to see a lot of wildlife.”
Munson,
who is a passionate fisherman to this day, tried to get used to the type of
fish coming from the western streams, but the size of the fish was too much to
take.
“I tried to get myself into trout
fishing,” Munson admitted, “but I couldn’t, because the trout were so small
that it really bothered me. I didn’t have a lot of interest in that; it’s just
that while you were trout fishing you were looking at such great scenery
– including the stream itself. Wyoming was a heck of a beautiful state.”
While in Wyoming, Munson met one of
the most famous announcers ever – Curt Gowdy – who gave him advice
that changed his life.
“The guy whose job I accidentally
took in Wyoming had moved on to the Yankees – and that was Curt Gowdy
–he told me that I would never make any money unless I got into
baseball,” Munson said. “He told me how to find a baseball job – where to
look. I found a AA Minor League baseball job, and I just took off for
Nashville. It was the Nashville Vols. Immediately I doubled or tripled my
salary because you are talking about 154 baseball games every year added onto
what you were currently doing, so you were doing games all of the time.”
Munson
had just come from a part of the country whose trouble was weather. When he
arrived in the South, Munson stepped into a place that was dealing with its own
problems.
“I remember when I got off the
train in Nashville I saw a sign on a water fountain – ‘FOR WHITES ONLY’. I
saw signs on restrooms in the railroad depot. I had never seen the black and
the white signs before,” said Munson of the Jim Crow laws in Nashville when he
arrived. The new surroundings didn’t detract Munson from his goals in
broadcasting.
“I started Vandy basketball
immediately. Nobody had ever broadcast those games anywhere ever. I had been
doing Wyoming basketball for two winters, and I saw how big basketball was in
Wyoming. They had a huge field house even way back then. Basketball had the
whole state tied up because the football team couldn’t win a game. The
basketball team was pretty special,” he said.
Munson convinced the owner of the
Nashville radio station that Vanderbilt basketball could be just as big as
Wyoming basketball was out west.
“I talked the guy that owned the
radio station in Nashville into (broadcasting Vanderbilt) basketball. It was
the only college in the town. He was all for it because he was an alumnus, and
that’s what we did. We got lucky because they had never even had guys on
scholarship. Right at that time they decided they would start to meaten things
up and they went out and got five scholarship players. Overnight, Vanderbilt
was trying to challenge Kentucky.
The town went nuts,” he said.
Soon thereafter, Munson got the chance
of a lifetime. The Milwaukee Braves were leaving Wisconsin and coming down
south to Atlanta. It was something that Munson’s idols Curt Gowdy and Mel Allen
had successfully done – moved from a starting job in radio to a
play-by-play position for a major league baseball team.
“The Braves brought me down to
Atlanta,” said Munson. “All of us that came down for the Braves were from the
North.”
Atlanta’s players back then were a
who’s who of big names in today’s baseball world. Hank Aaron, Joe Torre, and Phillipe
Alou were all playing for the Braves when Munson was broadcasting for the team.
He remembers them all well.
“Henry Aaron was quiet. He had very quick wrists – I
remember that. His bat speed was really something. He was a fine athlete; he
ran really well. Joe Torre was an All-Star catcher for us. Phillipe Alou was
another outfielder and a good hitter. Both of them ended up managing for some
time. Both years I was with them we started strong, but by June 15th
we were sliding below the middle of the pack,” said Munson of the Braves.
When asked
about Aaron’s home run record, the legendary play-by-play man said he felt “the
steroid guys will catch Henry” eventually.
One
day in 1966 Munson saw in a newspaper that legendary Georgia play-by-play man
Ed Thilenius was leaving the Bulldogs to be the play-by-play man for the newest
NFL franchise – the Atlanta Falcons. Munson picked up the phone and
called Georgia’s Athletic Director Joel Eaves to let him know of his interest
in the job. It worked – Munson was hired and started the 1966 season as
Georgia’s play-by-play man.
That
was the same season Vince Dooley took over the football program. Dooley didn’t
know quite what to make of Munson.
“He
wasn’t my ideal,” Dooley told Ray Glier in a 1992 article for Street &
Smith’s Sports Weekly. Dooley would listen to Munson worry about the size,
speed, and power of the opposition. “He drove me crazy as a coach,” said
Dooley.
At
the same time Munson was driving Dooley up the wall, he was driving himself
back and forth from Nashville to Athens, or wherever Georgia played. It was a
difficult time for him. For ten years Munson announced high school football
games in Nashville and then, right after the games, he would make the drive to
wherever the Bulldogs were playing. Then he rushed back to Nashville for his
fishing show that taped early Sunday morning. It was exhausting.
“I
had to shoot the fishing show for TV every Sunday morning. I met the other fishermen and the
camera men at 2:45 every Sunday morning at a Waffle House on I-70 in Tennessee.
I would come driving out of, gosh, Clemson, Tuscaloosa, wherever, and get home
some nights at 11:30 PM. I would just fall in the bed. Then the alarm went off
at 2 AM. I had my (fishing) gear spread out on the floor, and I put it on and
picked up the cameras and the rest and went out the door.”
Why
all the
travel and stress for Munson? He was trying to make a living.
“There was a good talent fee
involved in those early days of the fishing shows. I did them for 26 years.
When you suddenly have an extra $100 a week over and above your salary –
you got so used to that money that you didn’t want to get rid of it,” he said
In the early days, before the time
of the kickoffs changed, Munson had another option for getting back home.
“There
used to be a 6:30 flight out of the Atlanta airport every Saturday night for
St. Louis, but it stopped in Nashville first. By literally running I could
catch that plane every Saturday night,” he said. He added that the Georgia
State Patrol helped him find shortcuts.
But
in the early 1980’s, television, a fixture in college football now, started to
assert itself. To this day, Munson
thinks TV has all but ruined the product of college football and has, without
question, ended the importance of a radio broadcast of the game. With the
arrival of TV and its control of scheduling, Munson surely could not get back
to Nashville at a decent hour.
“You could only be on TV once a
year. They used to control it real tight, and they didn’t drop those controls until
1984. That’s when cable came. They took it to court, even the Supreme Court, I
think, and they won. They wanted to have a game on constantly. The schools took
it to court and won the case, and it opened up things completely overnight.
Instead of having a game once a week on ABC, let’s say, all of a sudden it was
on every network. The real killer was taking the NCAA into court and defeating
them – which they did. They forced the NCAA to open up and take all of
the rules and restrictions off and let everyone televise as many games as they
wanted to. They could televise their whole season, one game, seven games
– whatever. When they did that everything went nuts. And, as you know,
that’s when ESPN was built. There was no ESPN before that.”
“Now there are 14 games every
Saturday. From 10:45 in the morning to midnight out west. I would surely think
that a lot of kids grew up, went through high school and got to college and
just didn’t pay any attention to radio announcers. Television is everything
now, and radio is nothing in comparison.”
“In the old days, before TV,
college football (radio)
announcers were really big in the sports world because people didn’t have a way
to see any games or anything because games were not on television. You had a
big audience,” he said.
Beyond all that, Munson also
resents the lengthening of the games, the timeouts, the commercials, and the
constant changing of the kickoff times TV brings with it.
Another product, coaches’ shows on
television and radio, started popping up around the country. The idea trickled
down to Georgia after Kentucky had successfully implemented a basketball
coaching show. The ratings were good and so Georgia was interested in doing the
same thing.
“All of a sudden, the coaches’ talk
shows got started, and you could not get home the next day because there was
something that you had to do. When the coaches’ shows started, not only did the
coaches make some money out of it, and the sponsors were doing well, but it
took a whole crew of men to do the coaches’ show. Those coaches’ shows really
took up the radio guy – they had to get home (after the game). There was
no way you could stay over. They started around 1979.”
Television is the one factor that
Munson seems to have grown tired of in the landscape of college football.
Networks dictate the starting time of nearly all of Georgia’s games each
season. The Bulldogs, one of the most successful programs in college football,
have been on television 228 times. Television, to use a Munson term, has
“monkeyed” around too much with college football.
Priceless radio – Working with Munson
Scott
Howard and Neil Williamson have been working with Munson for about a third of
his career. Both have been there with Munson during some of his most memorable
calls. But they both admit that sometimes they are not aware of how great a
particular call is the moment it happens.
“When
we are broadcasting the game there is so much going on that we have to have our
eyes on,” said Williamson, a close friend of Munson’s as well as flagship WSB’s
Director of Sports Marketing. “Everything is moving at such a rapid pace that
when it happens, you don’t know. You are always in the moment. When Larry makes
a call, like the ‘Hobnail Boot call’, that’s just Larry talking. You never sit
back and admire Larry’s call because there is always something that has to be
done next.”
Williamson
works with Munson during the games, but it’s Howard that is on air with him
during the broadcast. He said it was intimidating at first.
“I
didn’t want to step on his toes when I first started working with him,” said
Howard, who appears to be the odds-on favorite to be the full-time replacement
for Munson. “I grew up listening to him just like everyone else did. That job
didn’t come with a book that says: these are the rules. I got the job and went
in and tried to tip-toe my way into it.”
“When
the game is on the line – that is when people want to tune in and listen
to him. That’s when they get their money’s worth, because he is just about
breathless at the end of the ball games. If there are three minutes to go, and
the game is tied, and Georgia has the ball, driving to win the game, that is
priceless radio,” said Howard.
Howard
said when he reviews broadcasts he tries to better himself, all the while
enjoying his on-air partner.
“I
listen to me and think about how I can get better. I listen to Munson and enjoy
it. I just try to fit into the broadcast. I’ll try to slip something in and try
to add a little color to the broadcast,” continued Howard. “He has great
passion. His ability to spin a yarn is pretty good, too. He can describe
something that happens, repetitively, in many different ways. I look forward to
Saturdays more than anything else.
Jeff
Dantzler, the color man for Georgia’s basketball program, has also been
affected greatly by growing up listening to Munson. Georgia basketball and
baseball fans can certainly hear the influence Munson has had on him.
“I
don’t want to say that I try to imitate him – I probably do some things
that I picked up from him just because he was the first guy that I listened to
the most. I just always loved the passion that Larry brought to the game. He
has a unique way of making you feel emotional about the game,” Dantzler said.
“There have been a lot of great
announcers, but he’s my favorite – I think he’s the best announcer ever.
I also think he is the most beloved. I don’t think any school has had the kind
of affection that the Georgia people have for Larry Munson. I’ve have always
said that there is a Mt. Rushmore of Georgia athletics with Dan McGill,
Herschel Walker, Vince Dooley, and Larry Munson. Is Larry the most popular
Bulldog ever? I don’t know, but he is certainly on that Mt. Rushmore. He just
might be the most popular figure in the history of Georgia sports,” said Dantzler.
“He has always been great to me. He
was one of my heroes growing up. To get to know and meet a guy with the stature
of Larry Munson and then for him to be a great guy – that’s extra
special,” said Dantzler.
Well… my name is Kelly – The 1980 Florida
call
Much has been written and said
about Georgia’s 1980 National Championship, but Larry Munson’s call of the play
that propelled the Dawgs to the title sums everything up. It is the most famous
play in Georgia football history, and Munson’s call adds icing to the cake.
Georgia’s most bitter rival,
Florida, has the Bulldogs on the ropes. It’s third down, and the Dawgs have
little time on the clock. The Gators are already celebrating what seems to be
their massive upset of the top team in the SEC. The win would have likely
propelled the Gators, not Georgia, to the Sugar Bowl thanks to a few ties and
other upsets in the conference. The loss would have been devastating for
Georgia – perhaps the golden age of the early 1980s would have never happened
without it.
It was a dark time for the Bulldog
Nation.
Just when all hope was lost, Buck
Belue, Georgia’s junior quarterback from Valdosta, scrambled to find the
soon-to-be very famous Lindsay Scott. Belue completed the pass to Scott. And
the rest, as they say, is history.
“Florida
in a stand-up five, they may or may not blitz – they won’t, Buck back third
down on the 8, in trouble, got a block behind him going to throw on the run,
complete on the 25 to the 30, Lindsay Scott 35, 40, Lindsay Scott 45, 50, 45,
40. ... Run Lindsay, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Lindsay
Scott!”
“Well,
I can’t believe it – 92 yards and Lindsay really got in a foot race. I
broke my chair. I came right through a chair, a metal, steel chair with about a
five-inch cushion. I broke it. The booth came apart. The stadium, well, the
stadium fell down. Now they do have to renovate this thing. They will have to
rebuild it now. I…This, this is incredible. I didn’t mean to beg Lindsay to
run, but I had to. 26-21 with a passing attack that wasn’t working all day, and
Lindsay caught it, I think, the 25 or 30 or so – no timeouts left in the
game.
”You
know, this game has always been called the World’s Greatest Cocktail Party
– do you know what is going to happen here tonight, and up in St. Simons, and Jekyll Island, and all those places
where all those Dawg people have got these condominiums for four days? Man is
there going to be some property destroyed tonight.”
“26
to 21 – Dawgs on top. We were gone, I gave up – you did, too. We
were out of it and gone. Miracle.”
You can hear the play on any
Saturday afternoon in the fall. Georgia fans play it on their way to the game
in their cars and while tailgating. If that’s not enough, you can hear nearly
everyone in the stadium scream “‘Run, Lindsay, Run!” before every game when the
play is shown on Sanford Stadium’s giant big-screen monitor.
Munson
has been asked about the call more often than he can remember. Sure, he recalls
the play itself, but Lindsay Scott is not the player he mentions first.
“The main thing I still remember
from the game is that I can still see the number – the number was 65,”
said Munson. “That was a guard of ours, Nat Hudson, who straightened up and
came across running, and Buck Belue had floated to his right to throw. Buck was about to get pulled down from
behind – and didn’t know it. Nat Hudson got his shoulder into that guy
and moved that guy about two feet off. The guy missed him, and Buck threw. That
play would never have worked, but Hudson threw the block. I saw the block just
as plain as day.”
Hudson’s block sprung Belue to
scramble from out of his own end zone and gave him enough time to get the ball
to a wide open Scott. The quarterback says he relives the moment ever time he
hears Munson’s call.
“My
brother has a montage of Munson’s greatest calls that he listens to in the car
sometimes,” said Belue. “When I get into the car I always hear the Florida
call. It brings chill bumps. The memories of that day come back so easily
listening to him.”
Belue,
who most certainly never has to buy his own drink in the coastal Georgia area
thanks to that play, said his wife didn’t know much about that play or Munson’s
famous call. She was introduced to the phenomenon that is ‘Run, Lindsay!’ one
year in Florida.
“My
wife is from Orlando, and we were at this Georgia function and somebody came up
to her, when I was just standing nearby, and screamed ‘Run, Lindsay, Run!’… and
she said, ‘Well, my name is Kelly,’ ” said Belue, belly laughing. “She did not
understand at the time, but she does now.”
The
play made both Munson and Belue famous.
“I’ve
had a chance to kick it around with Larry since that call, and we tease each
other about both helping the other’s career out a little bit,” said Belue.
Where did that come from? – The 2001
Tennessee call
‘Sugar
falling from the sky,’ ‘Oh, you Herschel Walker!’ ‘Butler kicks a long one,’
and ‘Appleby to Washington’ might have been more famous in the past, but a new
Munson call – ‘Hobnail Boot’ – is the current generation of
Bulldogs’ most memorable call. I certainly remember where I was when I first
heard ‘Hobnail Boot,’ which signaled a rebirth of the Georgia program, but
former Georgia quarterback David Greene couldn’t remember exactly where he was.
“I
think I was in my truck, no, wait, I’m not exactly sure where I was,” he said.
“I had heard about it. People told me ‘you have got to hear Munson’s call.’ ”
Georgia,
a program that had been going sideways since what appeared to be a rebirth in
1997, had a new head coach and quarterback in 2001. No one knew where the
program was headed. One thing was clear, however, and that was Georgia’s
inability to beat Tennessee in Knoxville. The Bulldogs had not beaten the Vols
at Neyland Stadium since Munson’s ‘Oh, you Herschel Walker!’ call in 1980. Not
only that, but Tennessee has won all but one game over the Dawgs in recent
memory. The odds were against Georgia in that 2001 game.
But
the Bulldogs fought Tennessee hard and eventually took the lead very late in
the game. It appeared the team had won the game late by forcing the Vols to
travel the length of the field with less than a minute on the clock. The Vols
completed an unlikely screen pass that went for a touchdown and it seemed
Georgia’s efforts were in vain.
“They’re going to kickoff to us and some
stupid miracle could happen.”
After a poor kickoff decision by
Tennessee and two big catches by Randy McMichael, the Bulldogs set up shop in
the shadows of the Volunteers’ end zone with only moments to play in the game.
“Ten seconds – we are on their six.
Tennessee playing what amounts to a four-four. And there’s… TOUCHDOWN! Oh my
God, a touchdown. We threw it to Haynes. We just stuffed them with five seconds
left! My God almighty, did you see what he did? David Greene just straightened
up and we snuck the fullback over and Haynes is keeping the ball. Haynes has come running all the way across to the bench. We
just dumped it over. It's 26-24! We just stepped on their face with a hobnailed
boot and broke their nose. We just crushed their face!”
“At
the time we never knew how big it was,” said Greene. “That’s something that
will be remembered forever in Georgia football history. It’s neat to hear
Munson say your name on the radio – I was in awe of that to begin with.
To be a part of that play was really awesome. It was amazing. I think he said
it about as well as he could. You could tell the passion and how excited he was
when he made that call.”
“If
anything Larry is more, well, negative than positive. You could tell how
positive he was (after the touchdown). And to even think of a hobnail boot, I
mean, who would have ever thought of saying that? But that is what makes Larry
the best,” concluded Greene.
“I
remember, just after the call against Tennessee in 2001, laughing, because I
didn’t know what the hell a hobnail boot was – I remember just looking at
him. We were all ecstatic in the booth after that touchdown, and then Munson
was just putting his spin on it. We were sitting there going ‘where did that
come from?’ It was just what popped into his head. He’s not one of these
broadcasters that maps it out: ‘Ok, if this happens, this is what I am going to
say.’ That’s just what came out – that was in his head, and that is what
came out of his mouth,” said Howard.
“Symbolically,
Hobnail Boot was definitely a call that signaled a change had come,” said
Williamson. “We didn’t know it at the time, but when you look back that
obviously was the play that gave David Greene the confidence, the fans the
confidence, and the team the confidence. Obviously it was more symbolic-- not
just that play, not just breaking the streak – but the transformation of
the Georgia program.”
“I
know that ‘Run, Lindsay, Run!’ won’t be replaced by anything ever, but to think
that there is a call that Larry Munson made that people will remember for years
to come is exciting. It was a little bit of a coming out party for us as a
program,” said Georgia Head Coach Mark Richt.
Arkansas baggage – Stories about
Munson
As
with anyone that has been in a business for 40 years, Munson has a few stories
to tell about his time as the Bulldogs’ play-by-play man. Being a part of the
media can place a person in strange places and situations – including
airports in Arkansas.
Georgia’s traveling situation is
unique in the SEC and perhaps around the country because it are one of the few
schools that is isolated from an airport large enough to handle the jets needed
to transport the football team to and from road games. That means the team must
pile into buses for any flights. Athens’ airport, Ben Epps field, does not have
a runway long enough to handle jets flying into it.
“We got caught in a blizzard a few
years ago doing basketball, and we were trapped in Arkansas,” Munson said. “The
Atlanta Hawks sent their charter plane to pick us up to get Georgia home. We
were caught for like 36 hours.”
Finally, Munson said, the team
could leave.
“So here we are in the Hawks’
plane, which is a big 737 jet, and we are coming in to land in that little,
tiny Athens airport. The wind was blowing from the north hard on our left wing.
This guy made a run at that airport. I don’t know how many miles out he was
when he went right down on top of the trees and made his run, and (all the
time) the wind was trying to blow him sideways. I never forgot the landing. All
I had in my mind was how short the runway was going to be, and we were putting
a huge jet in there that all of us had always been told could never go into the
Athens airport. But we got in there – and we used up every inch of that
thing.”
“We don’t have to lengthen that
thing a mile or something. We could just do it a quarter of a mile and handle
the air traffic. But for some reason they will not let that happen, and it
makes your job twice as hard – it really makes it hard.”
Munson tells stories the same way
he describes plays – he’s always pulling for the home team, or the pilot
in this case.
Getting home seemed always a
problem for Munson. Another time
he tried to fly home after Georgia’s win in the 1998 Outback Bowl. The team had
just knocked off Wisconsin and was certain to finish in the top ten for the
first time since 1992.
Neil Williamson, longtime spotter
Dick Payne, and Munson were told at the stadium that, if they wanted to, they
could catch a cab back to the Tampa airport and make the 6:30 flight back to
Atlanta. All the trio had to do was get a taxi in front of old Tampa Stadium.
The task seemed easy enough. But when they arrived outside the
stadium, they realized they had a problem on their hands – there were no
taxis to be seen.
Williamson asked a local where the
group could get a taxi. “They don’t come down here at all,” said the man.
Desperate, Williamson decided to use Munson to attract Georgia fans driving by
in hopes he would find a ride to the irport. After
what seemed like forever, a group stopped and asked – “Are you Larry
Munson?” He replied – “Yes, and we need to get to the airport.”
The problem was that the fans’ car
was already loaded with passengers and luggage. But the group was insistent
that they give Munson and crew a ride. “There was no room in the car, Dean,”
said Williamson retelling the tale.
“Get in,” insisted one of the
passengers.
“All in one move – and this
was not a young man – (the passenger) from standing outside the car, dove
over the back seat into the back of the station wagon, where the luggage was
and said ‘Well, just pile the luggage on top of me.’”
Those fans’ zest to help out Munson
is just an example of how beloved he is to the Bulldog community. Georgia fans
love him – he’s their treasure.
You would be foolish to try – Replacing a legend
At some point, Larry Munson will
give way to a new play-by-play announcer.
“No one is ever going to replace
Larry Munson – you would be foolish to try,” said Belue. “I think they
are going to have to change the dynamic of the booth to make it work. How could
you expect anyone to step in and do everything like Larry does? I think (when
he stops broadcasting) it’s going to be a dark day. He means so much to the
fans – he is everything to the fans.”
“I think it would be difficult
because you would be under the microscope,” said Howard. Although not at all ready to push
Munson out of the way, he seems a likely candidate for the job.
“For the person that does replace
Larry, they can’t focus on how hard it would be to replace him. Hopefully that
person is not trying to repeat Larry Munson. You would have to take it down a
completely different road. It would be a different broadcast. Georgia folks are
used to Larry Munson – a couple of different generations have grown up
listening to Munson, and they don’t know anyone else. It might be a little
rough; there could be some criticisms. Personally, that’s what I want to do.
We’ll see what happens. Hopefully I’ll get a shot, but Munson is still going
– so as long as he is still going, that’s good for me.
“I hope he keeps going. I hope he
goes another five years,” said Dantzler, perhaps another candidate for the job.
But Williamson, WSB’s man in charge
of filling the position when Munson leaves it, is not focusing on replacing him
any time soon.
“WSB’s stance on this is that it’s
Larry’s call. We are happy to have Larry broadcast the games as long as he
cares to,” said Williamson.
There was a time in the mid-1990s
when it seemed all people wanted to do was talk about when Munson was retiring
and who would replace him. Williamson said he is glad that topic is no longer
as much in the limelight.
“I
remember at speaking engagements I would say ‘Stop asking when Larry is going
to retire and enjoy that he is still here.’ It’s like wishing that your kids
would be 18. It’s like – only 11 more years until you’re 18. Love the
moment – enjoy the moment, people.”
“I
think winning the 2002 SEC Championship meant a lot,” said Howard. “They went
20 years without a championship, and that’s a long time. I think it was
something special for him. I think he even got a ring. That was nice. A lot of
people do nice things for him, just because of his service to the school and
his longevity, and he’s earned that.”
Munson
doesn’t go on campus much because he’s tired of getting parking tickets –
they rank just behind what television has done to college football in his book.
“There
is no place to park. I am just a basket case when it comes to going over to the
athletic department – I won’t go over there because I can’t park my car.
They have a 45-minute limit out front, if you can get one of those empty
spaces. But I get caught in that building. I can’t go into that building for
(only) 45 minutes. I don’t know how many tickets I got,” he said.
“I
am beginning to feel sorry for the fans,” he said. “I am beginning to think
that we need to do something for the fans. It’s hard to fix the traffic. It
just seems to me the traffic is worse every year, and every year there is less
parking. I think they ought to think of something to do to make it easier.”
Short
of solving the traffic and parking problem in Athens, Munson has already done
enough for the fans. This living legend – the voice of the Dawgs – is still spinning an unbelievable
body of work. Hopefully the future for Munson is full of good health, safe
travel and open parking spaces with no meter maid in sight. Most of all here’s
to a future that has Larry Munson lighting victory cigars – after 40 plus
years of service he deserves all of that and more.